Evie Greene (1873-1956)
Evie Greene (1873-1956)
(The Evening Post [NZ] - 19th August, 1905)
MISS EVIE GREENE
We like our favourite artists of the stage to do well in other countries (says M.A.P.). It would be a poor compliment to English art if they "failed to attract." But their success from home has, to us, its dark side, for when once they "catch on" abroad there's no keeping them for our own enjoyment. The triumphs of Miss Evie Greene as the Duchess of Dantzig in America have proved mixed blessings to her many friends and admirers on this side of the water. She went, she saw, and she conquered, and when it was known that she had done the last it would have been ungenerous to regret she had done the first. But that success in America, like all successes in America, has meant a return engagement, and in a few weeks London will again be without the services of a lady who - it is not too much to say - stands alone as a dramatic and vocal artist.
Miss Evie Greene made her first appearance before a London public as the boy-hero in the romantic opera, "L'Amour Mouille" produced about five years ago. Miss Greene had seena good deal of the stage before this engagement; but it was not until she came to London that she knew the real greatness of the "new" lady of the chorus. Here, in connection with the discovery is an amusing story.
In the last row of the stalls, pale and anxious, and in a costume which is described in the words "hat, blouse and skirt" sits the girl from the country, "a Miss Evie Greene." Floundering about the gangway in silks and laces and diamonds is a magnificent lady who looks as if she "had found the money for the show," and had come to see if they wanted another thousand or two. The magnificent lady suddenly catches sight of a new face in the stalls - "a Miss Evie Greene's" - and rustles along to patronise it. "I suppose you have been on the stage before?" is one of the remarks of the magnificent lady. "Oh yes" says Miss Greene; but only in the provinces." "I hear that is where they've fetched the new principal from - a Miss Evie Greene. Has she really such a good voice?" "I don't know," answers miss Greene.
The magnificent lady is about to question further the large eyed girl in the plain attire, when she is interrupted by the voice of the composer: "Now then Miss Evie Greene, if you will be so good?" And Miss Evie Greene, rising and smiling kindly at the magnificent lady, goes from stalls to stage and sings a solo. Later, the stage-manager requires all ladies of the chorus "forward," and among them is the magnificent lady in the laces and silks and diamonds! There is an odd look in her eyes when they meet those of the the girl in the "hat and blouse and skirt." This is one of the thousand little surprises of the stage at rehearsal-time.
(Palo Alto Tribune [USA] - 14th November, 1917)
EVIE GREENE's GHOST STORY
Miss Evie Greene, the musical comedy favorite who has just died, used to tell a story about a ghost which she firmly believed she had seen, says London Tit-Bits. The London correspondent of the Sheffield Daily Telegraph says the vision was at Sunderland, when she was playing principal boy in a pantomime.
Miss Greene was lodging in a fisherman's cottage, and one night, when she and some girls from the pantomime were going to her rooms for supper, there overtook them on the stairs the transparent figure of a little sailor lad, his arms raised, his eyes closed, and his body dripping with water. The figure hurried up to the attic of the cottage, and Miss Greene and her companions ran trembling into the nearest room. Afterwards they went all over the house, but could discover no trace of the visitor.
Next thing Miss Greene found her landlady grief-stricken. She had just received a telegraph from the owners of a ship in which her boy had sailed, saying that the vessel had been lost with all hands.
(The Star [NZ] - 22nd October, 1909)
ON THE STAGE AND BEHIND IT
EXPERIENCES OF FAMOUS ENTERTAINERS TOLD BY THEMSELVES
No. III - THE DIFFICULTIES OF STAGE LIFE
(By EVIE GREENE.)
In the early days of my career I acted from time to time under difficulties which would be extremely unlikely to occur in a modern West End theatre, where, indeed, a hitch of any sort is of very rare occurrence. I well remember the first engagement I got was in a company which was to make a tour of the North of England. I was just fourteen at the time. My duties were to sing and dance and make myself generally useful, but I confess my responsibilities did not rest very heavily on my shoulders; the fun of the thing was what chiefly appealed to me. We opened the tour at a town, near Berwick-on-Tweed. The theatre consisted of a large tent, and the stage was an apallingly rickety construction consisting simply of a number of planks placed on some half-dozen beer barrels. Our manager was a cheery optimist who, though he admitted the stage was a trifle shaky, declared he had often seen worse.
"If anything happens," he remarked after a critical inspection of the boards, "you haven't very far to fall."
Nothing did happen until half-way through the performance; I was singing a song at the moment, and as I was advancing down the stage I saw the boards in front of me begin to sway and in another moment they collapsed with a loud crash to the ground. I beat a hasty retreat, whilst the audience loudly cheered; several of them came forward and kindly volunteered to aid in reconstructing the fallen boards, and when this was done I came on again and, amidst tremendous cheering, finished my song; the chorus was sung from the back, as the manager did not consider our stage of sufficiently durable a character to hold the eight ladies and gentlemen of whom the chorus consisted.
I had a number of such experiences in my early days when I was roughing it and gaining incidentally a great deal of useful experience which stood well to me when I advanced in my profession. One of the greatest trials I had to experience in those days was playing a part which I often thoroughly disliked and for which I felt I was wholly unsuited. I can call to mind how on one occasion when I was given the part of a grumpy old woman, I went to our manager and said, "I don't feel one little bit like playing this old woman part. Can you not give me something better or something more suited to me?"
"Miss Greene," replied the manager, "if you are going to remain on the staff, take my advice and learn to play my sort of woman, old or young, good or bad." And afterwards I had to acknowledge that the manager was quite right.
To go back to some of the more amusing trials of my early stage life, a rather untoward incident happened when I was playing at a little town in the North of England during my first tour. When we arrived at the theatre we found it was already in possession of another company. Here was a facer. It was, of course, the only theatre the town boasted of, and we were confronted with the choice of either remaining idle for a week or moving on to another town. Neither of these solutions of the problem, however, appealed to our manager, who possessed a positive genius for overcoming difficulties, as, indeed, he needed to have. He was, by the way, an Irishman, and he strongly favoured the notion of turning out the company in possession of the theatre with the aid of a few blackthorn sticks. He made a passionate appeal to us to fight for our rights, and concluded by pointing out that "anyway, however it went, we would have the fun of a scrimmage." But on calmer consideration the unwisdom of an appeal to force or blackthorn sticks became apparent, and the difficulty was ultimately settled by our arranging with the occupying company to give us the theatre on alternate nights.
I had,of course, in those days to supply all my own stage dresses, which was not an easy thing to do out of a salary that was barely sufficient to pay for one's board and lodging. I usually made my own dresses, which was the most economical plan. I remember on one occasion part of my costume was a short yellow skirt, which another girl promised to lend me. I did not, however, try it on until a few minutes before it was time to go on, and then made the discovery that it was much too big for me. There was only one thing to be done, and that was to set to work to alter it, which I promptly did, assisted by the girl who owned the garment. I sent word to the manager to explain the unexpected difficulty that had cropped up, and with the ready resource that had always distinguished him on such occasions, he introduced at a moment's notice an entirely new feature into the piece in the shape of a conjuring performance by one of the company, which kept the audience vastly amused until I was ready to go on.
I had rather a remarkable experience when playing in Dumfries some years later. The theatre was an excellent one, and all went smoothly until one night when, in the middle of the performance, every light on the stage went out, and we were left in black darkness. A stage carpenter explained that there was something wrong with the gas meter, and that it was apt to "play tricks at times." The explanation was not wholly satisfactory; at all events, this particular trick which the meter played on this occasion put us all in rather an awkward plight. However, it was evident that it was one which the audience had apparently seen before, because they seemed in no way surprised at it and waited patiently until candles and lamps were lighted, when we continued the performance in rather a feeble light. As I said at the beginning of this article, such incidents would be quite impossible in a West End theatre, for modern theatrical management has brought the routine working of a theatre to a very high state of perfection. But though everything works quite smoothly in a modern theatre so far as outward appearances go, an actress has never-the-less often to play under difficulties which as a matter of fact are frequently greater than those I have mentioned.
For example, there are a few actresses, I think, who at some time or other have not suffered from stage fright, a malady which the most perfect theatrical management cannot avert. Stage fright is a most peculiar malady. It may and does attack the most experienced players as well as the beginner, and it frequently attacks one quite suddenly. I remember after my tour in America, when I appeared at the Prince of Wales's Theatre in the "Duchess of Dantzig," I felt awfully nervous before going on to the stage. There was no need for me to have been so, of course; I had a part that I thoroughly liked, and I knew I had crowds of good friends in the house who would be honestly and sincerely glad to welcome me back to London. But the fact remains that I was terribly nervous. When I appeared on the stage I got a tremendous reception, and then when the applause died away I felt a rather choking sensation in my throat and for a moment was unable to utter a word. I felt very much inclined to exclaim, "God bless you all." I didn't do so, of course and after a few seconds I recovered myself and was able to go on with my part all right. As a general rule, stage fright disappears when one gets on the stage, but it sometimes makes you feel as if you could not possibly go on.
I have known the case of an actress who was so badly attacked with stage fright that she could not stir from the chair in her dressing-room or utter a word. She had to be carried down to the stage by her dresser and pushed on, but once she was face to face with the audience she was all right, and the attack of fright disappeared.
Another difficulty which an actress has to play under is when she may be suffering from a terrific headache or nerve strain. Just fancy what it means to play perhaps a long and highly emotional part when suffering from a severe attack of neuralgia and your head simply seeming to be splitting in two. It is a very common notion among people who know nothing of theatrical life that an actress earns her salary very easily, for they imagine that all the work she has to do is to play for a couple of hours in the evening, while she has her whole day free. Well, here is how I have often had to spend my day:-
Rehearsal for new piece, 11-1;
rehearsal again, 3-6;
regular,evening performance, 8-11.
This is a common enough example of an actress's ordinary "daily day," and, without wishing to brag, I do not believe that any other professional man or woman is often called upon to perform harder work or work that involves such a tremendous physical and mental strain.
One of the most distressing circumstances in which an actress has frequently to play is when she may be suffering from some heavy domestic trial or sorrow. I have played in such circumstances myself, and the strain of going through my work night after night was indeed something terrible. But whatever trials and sorrows come her way, an actress must strive to forget them as well as she can and play her part as bravely as she may, and never flinch or falter from fulfilling her duty to the public.
I shall conclude this little article with another anecdote of an incident of my early days which just occurs to me. It happened during a tour in Scotland. I was given a new song to sing a few hours before the performance, and hastily tried it over on the piano in my room before I went to the theatre, but I was able only to acquire a very imperfect knowledge of the words or music. When the orchestra struck up the first bar of the song I suddenly resolved to sing the words of an old Irish ballad I had learnt when quite a little thing, which went splendidly to the music. The song got a great reception, and when I came off the stage the manager greeted me with a very puzzled face. "That wasn't the song I gave you, Miss Greene," he remarked. "It wasn't," I replied, "but a jolly sight better one," and the manager admitted I was right.